HARTFORD Not satisfied with the standard pencil, paper or computer, Hartford Union High School creative writing students have turned to far more unique surfaces to express themselves.

"I wrote a poem about the image of myself on a mirror for my project," said senior Kara Seib. "I think it's great people can find out something they maybe didn't know about you before."

"I made a red umbrella with a mobile on it, because it was different. I thought it was a creative idea, and great that we were able to do this," said senior Kristy Mulcahy.

"This gives us the ability to be more creative," said senior Katie Johnston, who wrote a poem about bowling on a bowling ball and pin.

A grandfather clock that reads "Even a broken clock is right twice a day," a refrigerator with the words "Avocado green what a nice color Not quite brown but not quite green. The color for the indecisive," a scale with the poem entitled "Fear" and a computer that crossed paths with a sledge hammer with the message "A fatal error has occurred" were all displayed in the Schauer Arts and Activities Center throughout the run of the high school musical to allow the students' creativity to enter the community.

"We got some initial inspiration from the Dr. Alphabet book, but they have just flown with the ideas by themselves. They worked on their projects for three weeks at home, and when they brought them in, it was like Christmas," said creative writing teacher Lin Courchane.

Courchane and creative writing teacher Mark Boyd gave the project assignment to all of their 120 students.

"They did these projects entirely by themselves as a way to allow more creativity," Boyd said.

In addition to their individual projects, students also contributed poems to a 60-foot roll of wallpaper, chairs and car parts.

"I wrote on a papier-mache saxophone because I'm involved in music a lot. It's kind of an important part of my life," said senior Josh Ursprung.

Seniors Eric Voit and Matt Terpstra teamed up to work on their project to display meat, used as a surface for their poems, at the Schauer Center.

"We wrote ours on meat. We wanted to put creative in creative writing class. My favorite line in our poem was 'It's perimeter is laced with grizzle. Slap it on the grill and listen to it sizzle,'" Voit said.

"It was a pretty cool experience, and everybody liked the meat," Terpstra said.